Police Service considers psychometric tests to weed out racists

The Police Service may extend its psychometric screening tests to weed out bigots and racists within the force.

The tests would be used to identify aspiring police officers with racist, sexist or dishonest tendencies.

Potential recruits would be presented with 24 different policing scenarios and asked to say how they would respond to each one. The scenarios would be interspersed with pictures, including some of white, black and Asian people.

The tests have already been piloted on 600 recruits in Scotland, the Scotsman newspaper reports.

Peter Thickett, secretary of personnel and training business area at the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland said: "One of the biggest areas we face in the service is about integrity and ethics, and I think these tests will be useful to us both in terms of recruits, but also potentially for selecting people for promotion and sensitive areas."